“What a relief! I thought you’d never wake up! You were tossing and turning… What? Zelda? No, my name’s Marin! You must still be feeling a little woozy. You are on Koholint Island!”

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was originally released in 1993 for the Game Boy and has since then gathered something of a cult following due to the game’s unique history and story.
The premise of the game is that, sailing on the high seas far from the Kingdom of Hyrule or the eponymous princess, the franchise’s hero Link is simply trying to get home when he is caught in a storm. Link is rendered unconscious and awakens cozy in the home of Marin, the young girl who found him on the beach and saved him.

“When I discovered you, Link, my heart skipped a beat!”

Marin’s father Tarin encourages him to seek his missing sword at the beach. Journeying out, it is quickly discovered that Link is shipwrecked on a small island with a giant egg residing at the summit of its lonely, central mountain.
The game was originally developed as something of an afterschool side project for a few Nintendo programmers, built from an older Japan-only Game Boy game named “The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls” (roughly translated). As a legacy of its humble beginnings and its unstandardized development, Link’s Awakening contains an unusually large number of sprites and direct references from other Nintendo titles, such as the aforementioned Japanese game, Kirby’s Dreamland, SimCity and Super Mario Bros. The nightmarish final boss from Mario 2, Wart, even makes a jovial musical appearance!

“Oh, Link, I’m glad you found this place. Will you stay and talk to me for a while?”

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening has the typical kind of top-down adventuring fun players of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past would recognize and appreciate. But as you play, you begin to become immersed in the mysterious isle and its quirky yet lovable townsfolk.
A fan of the 90’s TV phenomenon Twin Peaks, the director of Link’s Awakening aimed specifically to create a quaint, yet alluringly suspicious community which would both challenge and endear the player to it. At the urging of a sagely yet mysterious owl, Link collects eight musical instruments to awaken a mighty creature, called the Wind Fish, in order to get help leaving the island and sailing home to Hyrule, a task seemingly impossible without its help.

“I wonder where these coconut trees come from… Tarin says there is nothing beyond the sea, but I believe there must be something over there…”

Along the way you are kept busy helping the natives, playing a wide range of minigames while unlocking new areas and finding new items to further you in the game’s story. As he seeks the musical instruments, Link gets to know more and more of the island and its inhabitants and subsequently befriends all of them, especially the inquisitive and insightful Marin. Many of the game’s most memorable moments are simple dialogues between Marin and the reticent Link.
Amongst many other adventures, you help the boy-prince Richard (a cameo of the deuteragonist of The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls) take back his family castle by infiltration and force of arms. After a dramatic “dognapping” rescue, you take Marin’s neighbor Madam MeowMeow’s awe-inspiring pet Chain Chomp, BowWow, out for a casual walk to devastate the opposition. Eventually you learn a song Marin teaches you on an ocarina (a first in the Zelda series, mind you) in order to rouse a sleeping walrus blocking your path.

“Please don’t ever forget this song… or me…”

Like most Zelda games, you go through dungeons one by one, collecting the musical instruments you seek after solving a collection of puzzles and taking on the dungeon bosses. Even with the limitation inherent in a Game Boy, Link’s Awakening expands on A Link to the Past (which came out a year or two before) in many ways. The game’s perspective is changed with the occasional, Goomba-infested side-scrolling tunnel. Even more dimensions of interaction are added with the ability to jump and with integrated vertical puzzles that span between dungeon floors.
The fun and lively story of Link’s Awakening takes a dark twist as Link finally approaches the enigmatic ancient ruins which hold the guiding owl’s promise of revelation. Within he reads an inscription set into the wall.

TO THE FINDER… THE ISLE OF KOHOLINT, IS BUT AN ILLUSION… HUMAN, MONSTER, SEA, SKY… A SCENE ON THE LID OF A SLEEPER’S EYE… AWAKE THE DREAMER, AND KOHOLINT WILL VANISH MUCH LIKE A BUBBLE ON A NEEDLE…

While the game is not overly difficult, fighting the likes of the dungeon bosses with the simplistic, two-button controls of the Game Boy can seem imprisoning at times. With that though, there is something to be said for a game whose only major flaws are in the console, rather than the game itself. In fact, the primitive nature of the game is even a boon at times considering much of its cult following relish in finding the game’s many hidden and often humorous glitches and technical workarounds. 
As Link continues to defeat the dungeon bosses, they begin ominously calling out warnings and cries for help in turn. Upon collecting the eight instruments, Link plays the song Marin taught him to breach the egg at the top of Koholint Island and challenge the shadowy nightmare holding the Wind Fish in its sleepy stasis. Beaten and banished, the nightmare shrieks a final plea.

“This island is going to disappear… Our world is going to disappear… Our world… Our… World…”

Ascending a cosmic stairwell Link meets the elusive Wind Fish and the sagely owl, his guardian. The titanic Wind Fish speaks to Link and urges him to play Marin’s song one last time. As the Wind Fish is awakened, various scenes of the island all fade to white, one by one: Madam MeowMeow and her family of Chain Chomps, the village children playing ball, some monsters roaming the beach, Tarin standing alone in a forest, and finally a singing Marin in the town square.
On an open sea, a looming mountain island with an egg top simply fades to blue sky. Panning down, we are left with a scene of a lone Link afloat on driftwood, gazing upward longingly, silently in thought.

“IT BE THE NATURE OF DREAMS TO END! WHEN I DOST AWAKEN, KOHOLINT WILL BE GONE… ONLY THE MEMORY OF THIS DREAM LAND WILL EXIST IN THE WAKING WORLD… SOMEDAY, THOU MAY RECALL THIS ISLAND… THAT MEMORY MUST BE THE REAL DREAM WORLD…

“COME, LINK, LET US AWAKEN TOGETHER!”